You know, I have a very funny job. I have to sit here and admonish you all the time about something I can't explain. The style of Zen teaching, you know, is admonishing. It's said, Zenji near the end of his life, or I don't know how old. Tanahashi Sensei mentioned it the other day, maybe 60 or so. He got so tired of being strict with students that when he went around the Zendo hitting people, he wept. So finally he retired and became a painter. And many, in fact, Zen people, Buddhist people, have become artists in their later part of their life. I was amazed at the bowls and drawings of a Tendai nun who

[01:31]

If I remember, I saw the show of her work in Japan. If I remember, she didn't start till she was about 70. But anyway, in maybe ten years, she produced so many bowls. And this kind of Zen art, Buddhist art, is very simple, just a kind of comment. from another direction. Hakuin has the drawing, you must have seen, of this old monk with a kind of tummy, you know, he's sitting there. And Hakuin's written on it, Hey, monk, finally doing zazen. And then on the other side, he's written, sure, as if the monk is answering. Sure.

[02:39]

Anyway, in Zen practice, emphasis is on something formless or Taoism. Tao is the name for what we can't name. And listening to, reading the sutra or listening to a Zen teacher, you hear something more, as Suzuki Roshi says, more than the words. the words written down aren't quite the same. The Chinese poem is, Although the wind has stopped, the blossoms continue to fall. Although

[04:09]

the bird is singing, the mountain grows more silent. Although the bird is singing, the mountain grows more silent. This kind of poem, often used in Zen stories, again emphasizes something like Wang Wei, between seen and unseen. So I'm, of course, always talking to you in this way, too. But I don't actually think I have something you don't have and you should get it, or

[05:14]

that there's anything wrong with your life. If you think there's something wrong with your life, okay. I guess I feel more like I'm just part of you, and our experiences are separated a bit by circumstances and time. And yesterday I was talking to you about treating everything in its particularity, in its equality, in its particularity. So when you're doing zazen, maybe feeling is like You're just stacked up here. Your leg is hurting, but you've just stacked it here on the right. And your other leg is hurting, and you've stacked it here on the left. And you've stuck your stomach on top of that. And you don't much mind about it. Just stacked here, you know.

[06:42]

till the bell rings. That feeling. And maybe sleepily but trying to stay awake, whole sasheen, it would be good if it was like dreamwalking or sleepwalking. You're just an entity, just some stacked entity. You're not thinking about anything anymore. Zen is pretty simple, and I said all I need to say yesterday. But here I am. And correcting yesterday's mistakes. Because as Gensha, who, a very interesting Zen master who lived in the 9th century, Gensho, he admonishes his students, I'm tired of telling you to refine body and mind. That's what I was telling you to do yesterday, refine body and mind, and today I'm tired of telling you to refine body and mind. One commentary on a Zen

[08:09]

The story says, we Zen people are tired of seeing a white ox on the bare ground. We won't even turn around to see a splendid rootless herb. I've never heard of a splendid rootless herb. That's how I feel today. If you really could, just take it easy. Just be in the sesshin, stacked up, with no mind about anything else. This is a very good chance, best chance that I know of to learn how to live that way. How are we in Zen? Just take care of things, one thing at a time.

[09:33]

as if nothing else existed. Picasso says, when he starts a painting, it always changes into something else. He just starts and it becomes something else. He says, when he paints a nude, he doesn't have some feeling, I am making, painting a nude. He says, I just say breast. and say foot and say hand and say shoulder. This is again much like what I mean by your leg is hurting so you stack it on the right. Just a leg. So while I'm admonishing you, practice hard, refine your practice, Gensha says, even if you refine body and mind until it is like empty space and your mind until it is unwavering pure light, you still have not got past the cluster of consciousness. That's true.

[11:09]

But still we must refine body and mind. Hakuin has a painting of a fan, and on the fan is a painting. And on the fan there's a painting similar to another one he's done of two cliffs. It's kind of at an angle, see? two cliffs with a monk with the wind blowing his robes forward in the direction he's going. And painting of the bridge The different painting of just the bridge, not on the fan, has those who would know the bridge of Mama in their heart. I wish they could throw it across the world of men. Anyway, he means something like joining life and death or

[12:39]

joining people. Anyway, he's put this rather serious painting on a fan that he's painted, and then he has a comment beside the painting of the fan. In the month of June, the cool breezes rise, and not And so fans are not needed anymore and they're cheap, only two pennies. Of course in the month of June it's not so cool in Japan, actually. But he's right, the fan is quite cheap to make your own breeze. And even in winter time or June time you need something, you should be ready. So we should practice siddhāsan, see if you can drop your various projected personalities, see if you can drop the story.

[14:03]

So, on the one hand, again, I am trying to get you to do something, to practice more, to refine body and mind. Again, Gensha says, even if Shakyamuni appears with many displays and transfigurations, it won't help you. Or mental telepathy. Gensha says, won't help you, or knowledge of past lives won't help you. And yet at the same time, again, I am encouraging you to sit, to know some wider sense, you know, where Courtier and Cooley and sandal-maker are, you know, same. They're different and yet same. That kind of distinction is a hard one for us. But your story is so involved, you know, you have to be able to drop at least that, some hierarchy of people and work

[15:37]

It's so hard for a person with various hierarchies to actually treat everything equally. This work is good and that work you don't pay so much attention to. This work is important work and this is unimportant work. Being here at Tassajara is unimportant and being somewhere else is important. Or being in the Zendo is important and doing the garbage is not important. With that feeling, you can't just be here, stacked up. So again, although I am admonishing you to refine body and mind, to develop your concentration, like mind only. Mind only means something, beyond the point instant. Everything is just something your mind makes. Point instant is beyond language or description. But this kind of mind-only idea is not so good, this Lankavatara and Yogacara.

[16:58]

It's a very interesting basis of many koans, but it still has the idea that something exists, your concentration is reality. And yet our concentration is reality. No one is saying, this doesn't exist. We heard something, but beyond that it's difficult to say what it is. and to be able to live that simply. It's pretty hard to do. Tsukireshi says, maybe patience is not such a good translation of nin. He says constancy in Zen mind, beginner's mind. Constancy may be better. Just ready in the utter darkness some flashing. Enlightenment flashes and next moment we forget about it.

[17:59]

If you live in emptiness, constancy, live from emptiness, he says constancy will eliminate all your troubles. So again, coming back, although I admonish you, encourage you to develop your concentration, to develop your powers, to just be here, to sit well, at the same time I'd like you to just take it easy. just be able to do whatever it is. Gensha is the person, you know, I told you about the scroll, Sawaki Kodoroshi's scroll from Joshin-san. You all know Joshin-san had a stroke

[19:25]

Anyway, she's having pretty hard time. I don't know if we can help in any way. Before the stroke, maybe something was driving her a little crazy, and she began ripping her clothes off and shitting in the room. And the monks, it's pretty hard for the monks to know what to do. Anyway, no one can see her. She's in the hospital, and she's half paralyzed. I mean, there's some possibility it might be good for her to come here. We could try to take care of her. Because it's... I think harder for them to take care of her there, actually. I can't explain the situation. And she's such a strange Japanese. Japanese people don't know what to make of her, but we do.

[20:55]

For us, she's quite wonderful, you know, shaking hands. First time she came down here, she jumped into the snow and made angels, you know, with her robe. Nakamura-sensei. Japanese people don't do that kind of thing, you know. Old elderly nuns don't do that kind of thing. She's very strange. Anyway, she gave us this scroll from her teacher, that her teacher, Sawaki Kodoroshi, made for her, and her teacher, for whom she cut her little finger off. to leave her other teacher. Anyway, this scroll says, I told you, and it comes from Gensho's teacher asked him, why don't you travel and study Buddhism? And he answered, a Bodhidharma did not come to China.

[22:29]

and the second patriarch did not go to India. So his teacher accepted. Very alert statement. And later, after he was with his teacher for many years, again, he did decide to visit many monasteries and look around at the world. And leaving, outside the gate he stubbed his toe very painful and bloody and he, oh, and he went back and stayed. What is this pain? Anyway, as I say, I wish also you could not worry about Buddhism and attainment and so forth. Just do your life constantly. Wong Wei has a poem which goes something like, If you want to get to the Yellow Flower River,

[23:58]

I guess you must follow the blue stream, which twists through narrow ravines and yammers over rocks. Although only a hundred miles as the crow flies, many, many backs and forth, twisting back and forth through the mountains, sometimes becoming wide where the chestnut tree grows by its side, and various plants float in its stream. But I'm—Guang Wei says, but I'm very lazy. Too lazy to follow this blue stream to the Yellow Flower River. I just prefer to sit on this rock by this pool and take it easy. You know, that actually was my idea, too.

[25:22]

many people I studied Buddhism with wanted to go to Japan or do this and that, and I couldn't understand it. You know, I was very lucky, though, because I had such a good teacher, such a nice guy as Suzuki Yoshi. So it was okay with me just to try to be helpful to him. So I actually didn't care about going to Japan or being ordained or enlightenment, it all seemed rather disturbing or egoistic. So I felt Maybe someone else should do that, but I should just help Suzuki Roshi. I used to help him with his English and such things. Of course, he always was asking me in various ways, what are you really doing here?

[26:47]

if I had some idea going on, you know, he wouldn't pay much attention to me. So sometimes it was hard to try to help him. I've told you before, one of the most perplexing was when we left the Zendo in San Francisco, in the old building, As we left the zendo, we bowed to him. And I'd been practicing maybe a year or so, a little more than a year, a year and a half about, a year and a half, a year and three quarters, and suddenly, well, not so suddenly, I didn't notice it right away, but he stopped looking at me. He would never look at me. I'd come and bow to him. I'd come in to do something. So for over a year, he wouldn't respond to me. If I spoke to him, he would not refuse to speak, but it was rather brief, or there was nothing to say, nothing. So I, oh, okay, and I'd go away.

[28:17]

for over a year. And I, actually I wasn't hurt by it or anything, but I felt he must have, I felt, well, however he wants to live is okay with me. So I just I kept going, doing what I thought I should do, and occasionally I wondered about it. And I found, finally, that the less I brought to the circumstances, the more likely he was to respond. Sometimes I would be quite busy. People wanting to ask me a question or something. And there were two doors, the door to his office and this other door out there into the hall. So sometimes there's this big line waiting to go out and sometimes somebody would be going, you know, everyone went to work.

[29:55]

I might have to speak to somebody before they went to work, and I was about the last person in the far corner of the Zendo to get out. So sometimes I would go out the door and talk to somebody who was first, who had already passed by security. And then I'd go back in, because the line was still there, and I'd join the end of the line again and go through. So, coming through this way, he would pay no attention to me. But when I went that way, one time he came out and started hitting me with a stick. So I went back in. It was like a sashim for me. So I really didn't mind much what he did. I didn't care whether he liked me or didn't like me, or wanted me as a student or didn't want me as a student. One time, stupidly, I said to him, after many years and various things had happened, I said, did you have any idea all this was going to happen?

[31:23]

He acted like I'd fallen through the floor or something like that. He was still in front of me, we were sitting at a table, but it was like he'd just gone about a hundred feet away. To make that kind of reference. to make any reference outside the particular. So strangely enough, our Zen way of life, just to

[32:31]

do things, one thing after another. Everything changing, no matter what we start, it becomes something different. not giving any special value to things. This manner of doing things is the secret of Zen and secret of how we learn from our teacher. and secret of how we can begin to see things, conjunction of things, without some idea blinding us. So to give up enlightenment and everything

[33:56]

is pretty close to what we mean by enlightenment. So this practice is pretty hard and boring. It should be pretty hard and boring. It should put some restraint or irritation on you. And hopefully you can find out how to just sit here.

[35:24]

Your right leg on the right and left leg on the left. Stomach and shoulders and head. Just an entity. Kind of undivided entity. Going to your cabin. coming back, sitting all one joined column of space, hall of space.

[36:26]

much idea about what you're doing this way you'll be softened up for forgiving yourself and for not being so hard on other people. I'm very grateful to have Buddha. I need to respect something. I want to respect something. So maybe I'm not a Taoist

[37:29]

because I like to have something to respect. I need something to respect. So Buddhism gives me something to respect. This wonderful statue from almost 2,000 years ago, sitting. Someone made it like the sandals of the person pulling the cart. Someone made it wanting to make this statue. Not exactly art. Not to make something beautiful, but to express something they respected. I think we need something to respect. We need someone to love. We need something to care about. We need something to trust. we need to trust someone. If you can't find someone to respect and someone to trust and someone to love, sounds like a popular song, you are in trouble. Our society is in trouble.

[38:56]

if no one respects everything. I'll bet you there are very few couples in which the spouses trust each other. You can't even trust the people you're intimate with. It's a terrible, terrible, terrible situation. So we seize our life, seize Hakun's fan, and make a life we can, where we can respect someone and trust someone and love someone. Gensho says, what kind of a world are you going to put your hands and feet into?

[40:02]

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